In September of 1995, the foundation brought together a group
of scholars, some of whom are experts on criminal violence
and some of whom study markets in illicit commodities. The
aim was to consider promising policy initiatives to reduce
serious youth violence, which has attained truly horrific
levels in recent years. The product of that conference is
Kids, Guns, and Public Policy, the Winter 1996 issue of Law
and Contemporary Problems, a publication of the Duke University
School of Law. The contributors who participated in the conference
are Alfred Blumstein (Heinz School of Public Policy and Management,
Carnegie Mellon University), Philip Cook (Sanford Institute
of Public Policy, Duke University), David Hemenway (Health
Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health), David
Kennedy (Criminal Justice Policy and Management, Kennedy School
of Government, Harvard University), James Leitzel (Sanford
Institute of Public Policy, Duke University), Peter Reuter
(School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland), Richard
Rosenfeld (Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of
Missouri-St.Louis), and Franklin Zimring (Earl Warren Legal
Institute, University of California-Berkeley). In addition
to chapters by these contributors and their co-authors, the
volume contains two commissioned after the meeting, by Sam
Kamin (Judicial Clerk to the Honorable D. Lowell Jensen, Federal
District Court for the Northern District of California) and
by Deanna Wilkinson and Jeffrey Fagan (School of Criminal
Justice, Rutgers University and School of Public Health, Columbia
University). Philip Cook chaired the conference and edited
the volume. What follows is a distillation of the considerable
wisdom contained in Kids, Guns, and Public Policy.

The Facts | The widely held belief that homicide has
been increasing in recent years is erroneous. The U.S. homicide
rate has shown no consistent trend between the early 70s and
the much celebrated downturn of the past five or so years.
What did increase, however, and dramatically so, was the rate
of homicide among young men, from ages 15 to 24, beginning
around 1985. The size of the spike varies somewhat depending
on which segment of this age range is chosen, but a conservative
summary statistic is a doubling of the homicide rate for this
group since 1985. (The same pattern is evident whether the
focus is homicide arrests or victimization.) This development
becomes even more striking when contrasted with the decline
in homicide among those 24 and over during the same period.
Disaggregating the figures by race yields an appalling tripling
of the homicide rate among black adolescents and young men.
Although youth homicide has abated somewhat as part of the
recent general decline, it is still double the 1985 figure.
The projection of a 20% increase in the number of teenagers
over the next fifteen years has tempered, though not crushed,
the optimism of scholars scrutinizing the recent drop in homicide.

The role of guns | As shocking as the youth violence
epidemic is, changes in its instrumentality are even more
dramatic and are key to understanding it, as discussed by
Blumstein and Cork and by Zimring. For the rate of homicide
by means other than firearms did not increase at all during
this period--the spike is entirely the result of an increase
in gun killings. Between 1984 and 1991, the number of youth
gun homicides more than doubled.

It appears, then, that the increased use of guns by youth
in their assaults has resulted in the sharp rise in killings
by and of youths. This outcome is not surprising, given the
greater intrinsic lethality of firearms compared to other
weapons. It requires virtually no physical competence to deliver
violence with a gun and, because of its lethality, a gun attack
entails less risk of retaliation than throwing a punch or
even wielding a knife. Both of these facts may make weapon
use more likely in a gun bearer, especially in the adolescent
male, not known for deliberation about long-term consequences
of his behavior. Whether this conjecture is correct--and this
is amenable to empirical study--it seems certain that the
presence of guns affects the course of a confrontation independently
of the predisposition for violence those involved bring to
the event, as argued by Wilkinson and Fagan.

Other interpretations are possible, of course. It could be
that the number of youth in possession of guns has not increased
but that those who do have them have become more inclined
to use them, while those with other weapons have not been
affected by the same motivation to assault. That this explanation
is less plausible than the one indicting an increased prevalence
of guns is strongly suggested by the picture of suicide during
the same period, developed by Blumstein and Cork. While non-gun
suicide was level or declining for most groups, a significant
increase in suicide by gun can be seen beginning around 1984
for black youth and young adults and for white youth aged
15 to 19. In other words, an increase in gun suicide, most
clearly seen among blacks, accompanies that for gun homicide.
The upshot of all of these statistics is that an increase
in juveniles' access to guns has meant a sharp rise in violent
death among American youth.